Sunday, February 6, 2011

Street Cred with 3 Speed CX

The StreetCred Series started this Saturday.http://www.streetcredkc.blogspot.com/-The race Started at Volker Bicycles at 18th and Wyandottehttp://www.volkerbicycles.com/index.shtml-In the Cross Roads District.http://www.kccrossroads.org/-With the conditions of the streets, and never knowing what to expect, I decided to ride my single/3 speed cross bike setup 3 Speed. Before for 3 speed mode I had STI levers to shift the gears, but now I don't.What do they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention". This is an old Sutour Retro action MTB friction thumb shifter. If you go friction, you must go Suntour Retro Friction. They work like this.Suntour Retro Friction RebuildMy CX bars are over size so I needed a 31.8 clamp. I had a 32mm Gates clamp, but it was about 5mm too short, so I added another.-There you have it. It took about 10 minutes before I figured out where I needed to be for 2nd gear, but once I knew it worked flawless . . . at least for 3 speed. The problem I find . . . as well as other it turns out . . . with 3 speed hubs is that once you coast, it might take 1/8 turn before it become engaged again. This gives the feeling that it's not going to engage, there by engaging the Panic Reflex. (. . . and yes those are my old 80's wool "Fishnet"tights).-The solution is to plan ahead and always be engaged. Think of it as a single speed you can change gears on without using tools. Also after you coast, or change gears, re-engage the drive while seated.We were penalized for each piece of carbon fiber we had. I had a carbon fiber fork. So after the race started I had to eat one beep before I could leave the start. I heard one guy had to stand there eating 5 peeps before he could leave.-The race consisted of 8 stops. Above is the completed manifest. I also took a picture of all the answers that I photoshoped on the picture of the manifest. In otherwords the manifest didn't have pictures on it.-OOOOOoooooooooooouuuuu! . . . Upon reaching the first stop, I found . . . or didn't find . . . my manifest. So I had to go back, lucky for me my old buddy, old pal, Bryce showed up 15 minutes late. I don't know, maybe it was written in the stars because he was singing Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice, and I had just listen to Under Pressure by Queen. If you don't see the relationship between these two songs click here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Ice_Baby-First Stop: Shuttee Lumberhttp://www.schuttelumber.com/-Second Stop: Union Stationhttp://www.unionstation.org/index2.php-Third Stop: Gem Theater in Jazz Districthttp://18thandvinedistrict.org/-Forth Stop: Statue of Ilus Winfield Davishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilus_W._Davis-Stop Five: River Market Pierhttp://www.kansascityrivermarket.com/To find the plaque for the Great Flood of 1844http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1844The Missouri river was full of these ice lilly pads floating down the river.-

I thought this park had some neat architecture.-Stop Six: Pacific House (About 4th & Delaware)http://www.kc-lofts.com/bldgs/pachouse.htm-Stop Seven: Staute of lewis and Clark. Check it out! I didn't know Lewis and Clack had an I-Phone. I suspect they had the GPS application, and I thought they did the exploration using maps, compass, and the stars. The object here was to find the Dog's name, who is on the back side of this picture.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaman_(dog)-

Then back to the bike shop. The ride went to plan and nothing crazy happened. No I will say that I had an unusual amount of bad drivers to contend with.

There I met this guy. He was a nice guy.http://www.somethingclassicinkc.blogspot.com/I also met a few other people there, they were all real nice, if you have never come out to an Alley cat ride you should give it a go. It's all about having fun.

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Then I went next door to YJ's for some Red beans & Rice. I like YJ's and eat there ever chance I get. They have lot of snacks and things, and a special. Today was Red Beans and Rice. It was very good as usual.http://www.pitch.com/locations/yjs-snack-bar-12385/-Speaking of local. Here is a bakery who's goodies I'm going to check soon in Lee's Summit. They call themselves Be Free Bakery.http://befreebakers.com/